Writing and Roleplaying Guild Wiki:Policies Overview
Welcome to Our Policies Welcome to our little corner of Wikia. As with many things in life, we have rules that need to be followed. If you have any questions or don't understand a rule, please contact someone from the Administration Team. This page gives you a brief overview of each of our policies, with links to the full policies. We've tried to make them as easy to read as possible, please respect our rules, and the users who participate here. Thank you. Adopting A character or story may be put up for adoption at any time. To do so, simply go to the adoption request page and edit the page accordingly. You also need to add the Template:Adoption Template to the top of the character or story in question. For the full policy on Adopting, go here. Categories Categories are an important tool on this wiki. With categories it helps to keep track of pages as far as if they belong to the writing area or the roleplay area. They also help to keep track of our Rating System and to whom the pages belong. When it comes to the rating system however, this will be one of the most important categories to be accurate. If you mark a story as PG-13, but the story clearly should have been Rated R, that mistake could result in deletion of the story and/or further corrective action. To see the full policy on Categories, go here. Characters As this isn't a singular roleplay wiki about a singular topic/world, the character policies may be a bit different than some users are accustomed to from other Wiki's. Compared to some wiki's they may seem downright lax and laid back, which is the goal of having a larger scope Wiki. To see the full policy on Characters, go here. Chat Chat is one of the main forms of communication for our wiki outside of talk pages. In general Chat should be treated with respect to those others in chat. Conversations kept friendly, no bullying, spamming, screaming, crude or rude behaviour, etc. In other words, treat people in chat like you would like to be treated. Enforcing chat rules can be hard, as there are lots of grey areas as to what is acceptable behaviour at times, especially with so many people in so many age groups from so many walks of life. What is funny to one person, might be hurtful or crude to another person, so if a user asks you to change topics because they are uncomfortable, please respect them. To see the full policy on Chat, please go here. General Policies Not all things that need to be mentioned in policies require an entire page to themselves, this is just a few miscellaneous odds and ends. To see all the general miscellaneous policies, please go here. Images In the process of making characters, most users like to find pictures from somewhere around the internet to represent their character. Because doing so is very popular, it is necessary to have a few ground rules for the use of pictures. One important basic rule to always keep in mind, is copyright, there is lots of free use and fair use images out there, but if you find images that have blatant copyright and water marks over the image, you shouldn't use the image. Some sites, like DeviantArt, may not have markings on the image itself, but on the source page that clearly state the author's wishes for use of the image, please respect this. To see the full policy on Images, go here. Inactivity Life off the internet doesn't always make it possible for us to do everything we wish we had time for. However, the aim of this wiki is to be a place for you to escape from your life and kick back, relax and enjoy yourselves. Because of this we will try to be laid back and accommodating to everyone's schedules. Bottom line though, please at least try to keep people updated as to when you will or won't be around, especially if you are on the Administration Team or in one of the Wiki Help Groups. To see the full policy on User Activity, go here. Multiple Accounts All the accounts a user controls will be treated as the same person. In short, registering another user name does not allow someone to create a new identity for themselves: it won't allow a user to circumvent a block or vote more than once. Being caught using a second account on our wiki, that wasn't declared, especially one used to circumvent policies or use in a malicious manner, will be an automatic permanent block from our wiki. To see the full policy, go here. Plagiarism Plagiarism is a lot like a white lie, something that most likely we have all done at one time or another whether we meant to or not. Maybe we were desperate for a good grade, maybe we figured no one would ever find out, and I'm sure there are going to be times that maybe no one will find out, but that doesn't make it right. Whether you are taking someone's coding they worked hard on, copying bits of a story they wrote or using an image that doesn't belong to you, without their permission it isn't an OK thing to do, and it is not something that will be tolerated on this Wiki. If you are caught plagiarizing or using things that do not belong to you, appropriate corrective action will be taken in accordance to the severity of the transgression. To see the full policy on User Activity, go here. Ratings This Wiki is to provide for you a space to let your creativity fly as free as possible, whether it be in roleplay or writing. We want users to be free to write, but we also want this place to be friendly and welcoming to all users of varying ages, varying backgrounds, beliefs, etc. Though we do not want to be too limiting to content, we do want to make sure all stories and roleplays are marked appropriately so that any users reading will understand and be warned in advance what to expect. We want to create a comfortable place for everyone and part of that includes ensuring that all members are fully aware of the type of content that they are reading before they dive in. That’s why we encourage writers to rate their stories as they see fit and reserve the right to override these ratings as needed. To see the full policy on Ratings, go here. Roleplay Now in general role play can be a lot of fun, but sometimes people may take things a little far, feeling like that because it is taking place in a fictional world that has been created, the real world rules of etiquette don't apply any more. This however is far from the case, there is a wide range of ages that participate here, which is why the rating system is so important to help users feel welcome and aware of their surroundings. There is also a big difference between fun roleplay and using this site as an excuse to bully and harass. Aside from general rules of etiquette, we also have to have rules in place to keep things fair to all users involved, this involves having policies in place to ensure fair play by avoiding things like meta-gaming, godmodding and being generally OP with roleplay and characters. Anyone familiar with other roleplay sites and games should be familiar with these concepts, but we will go over them in detail just in case. To see the full policy on roleplay, go here. User Blogs Blogs are a popular feature on many wikis. Sometimes though, blogs can get out of hand. In general some level of common sense should be used with blogs, they should be appropriate, polite, on topic, they should have a point to them, and so forth. Some good reasons to create a blog might be to talk about a major event in your life like a birthday, or to announce a roleplay idea you'd like help with, or to announce having to go inactive. Bad reasons to make blogs would be things like asking for help with something (we have a Questions & Answers Board for questions), just to say hi, roleplaying. For the full policy, go here. User Levels After a user joins the Wiki and learn their way around, some users may want to get even more heavily involved in the upkeep and growth of the Wiki. There are four levels of User Rights that can be obtained for this, Chat Moderators, Rollbacks, Administrators and Bureaucrats. With higher positions of power come great responsibility. You will be enforcing the rules here and therefore must be even more accountable to your actions and set a good example for others to follow. If you feel you meet these requirements, you may request here. To see the full policy go Here. User Signatures Always remember to sign messages you leave on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~) This lets readers know who said what and makes discussions easier to follow. Signatures are also used for voting on things and in debates and various other things around the wiki, because of this it is important that they are properly coded and remain tasteful and appropriate. It would be better to have a boring signature, than to have one that is coded so poorly that it breaks the coding of everything around where it is used. To see the full policy, go here. Voting When discussions or debates take place, often the outcome might be holding a vote. Votes take place for a variety of reasons. When a vote is taking place, users will vote for one of the options. If the user chooses, he/she can give a reason why he/she votes for one. Some voting will be open to all users who have at least 5 edits on the Wiki, some only for users on the Admin Team (Chat Mods, Rollbacks, Administrators and Bureaucrats). However, all users are entitled to adding their opinions under comments, even if they can't vote. Just because the vote may not count, doesn't mean your opinion shouldn't be heard or taken into consideration. To see the full policy, go here. Warnings & Blocking Blocking is the means by which an administrator prevents a user account from editing here on the Writing and Roleplaying Guild Wiki. Blocks are preventive rather than punitive measures used to prevent damage by dealing with vandalism and enforcing Writing and Roleplaying Guild Wiki policies. Block durations may vary, depending on the severity and longevity of policies broken. Sufficient written warnings should always be given before resorting to a block, unless the severity of the rule breaks demands coarser action. Over time, depending on the severity of warnings, a user's slate may be considered wiped clean, but only if they go at least 6 months with no further rule breaks. To see the full policy on Warnings and Blocking, go here. Writing Rules Writing is the other 'half' of the wiki, though roleplay is also a form of writing. This encompasses everything from fanfiction to poetry to full blown stories. It is a way for you to not just write, but also to collaborate with others and get feedback about your writing. Because you are writing your things out there for all to see, you must expect feedback to some degree. We will try to keep people friendly, but you can't expect to never get any constructive criticism at all on your work. If you don't want people to have opinions about your writing at all, you probably should be keeping it in a private journal somewhere in your room. To see the full policy on User Activity, go here. Category:Policy